


The Other Side (and beyond?)

by dunbarisms



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: F/M, I never shipped anything so hard, M/M, Multi, Other, Phillip is bisexual he just doesn't know it yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 21:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13349781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunbarisms/pseuds/dunbarisms
Summary: No beta. Small Drabble. There might be more than one reason as to why Phillip accepted Barnum's proposal to join the circus.Not that he will ever say it out loud.





	The Other Side (and beyond?)

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble. I saw The Greatest Showman and while I love Phillip/Anne and Charity/Barnum, I also enjoyed the chemistry between Hugh and Zac and how tumblr exploted with posts about The Other Side being taking out of context. So here it is. No beta, just me going crazy at 8 am.

**The Other Side (and beyond?)**

There is something alive in Barnum’s eyes. Why, of course, everyone’s eyes are alive but not like Barnum. Phillip isn’t sure how he can explain without sound like a madman, he just _sees_ it. A glimmer in the iris and a shine in the pupil, engrossed with excitement as the man speaks about the circus and his plans.

Plans that include **_him_**.

A con-man. A sham of a man that makes himself seen as a showman and a man of the arts. That’s what Phillip sees when he first meets Barnum. And yet, he finds himself unable to leave the side, continuing to drink and pour glasses until an offer is made.

The two men talk and talk and it’s the most interesting and smart conversation Phillip had had in his entire life. It fills him with prospering for the future, and it might be the alcohol in his system but he can’t help but notice Barnum himself.

Even intoxicated the man is lucid and livid, talking and spinning and flapping his hands around to show him what it would be to be a man of the circus.

Free. Happy. Able to live by his rules and not society’s. Not his parents’ rules.

And Barbum is always smiling and it makes him feels giddy. He will blame the booze in the morning and the rapid headache he is sure will appear in its place. But right now? As the two talk in the privacy of a bar, personal space seems to be a long forgotten rule, Phillip feels a rush.

One he had never felt before. Or he had, but just not with men.

He might be young but he wasn’t born yesterday. It’s the same feeling in his gut that when he was kissed for the first time at the tender age of twelve by his best friend.

It’s the same adrenaline through his blood that when he had sex for the first time, that feeling of a rapid thump in his chest, his heart marking a beat so strong it made him want to dance.

He feels it now, as Barnum shows him what the world would be if he simply says **YES**. There is a part of him that wishes to know if his words imply the second meaning.

(Surely he drank too much and it’s just the booze.)

He then comes to the conclusion, right there in the spot, that P.T Barnum could convince anyone to do anything if he put his heart into it.

There is touches of hands and stronghold by his shoulder as he finally accepts. And as Phillip struggles to stand up, his scarf is placed around his shoulders by strong hands that aren’t his own.

He gulps, unconsciously and the two men stay quiet for a moment.

The bar is closed. Phillip rational mind screams through the dizziness to stop whatever he wants to do. His body, however, wishes to do anything else.

 _A decent married man._ He remembers.

“How about you show me exactly what am I getting into?” He finally manages to find words, breaking whatever magic or supposed one was around them.

But Barnum never fails to smile and just taps his shoulder, a gentle push in the right direction.

And then, of course, Phillip then meets Anne and he loses his heart to the woman.

But a part of him always wondered if there was more than one reason for why he had accepted Barbum’s insane proposal.

He concludes that **yes**. There most likely was.

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

For he wasn’t going to say it out loud.

 


End file.
